Chapter 6: Chapter 6
The sharp crack of Brittany's .308 echoed across the field, the spent casing arcing gold in the fading light before vanishing into the tall wheat. Kirk flinched, the sheer, casual precision of her movements unsettling. She hadn't even seemed to aim properly, just shouldered the rifle and fired. The target, a rusted metal silhouette easily three football fields distant, now sported a perfectly centered hole.
"Bloody hell," Scotty breathed, squinting at the impossible shot. "That's... nae possible. The wind, the drop..." Beside him, Spock remained unnervingly still, one eyebrow almost imperceptibly raised. "Fascinating," he murmured, his tricorder already humming faintly. "The projectile trajectory defies calculated ballistics models accounting for established atmospheric density and gravitational constant."
McCoy just glared, crossing his arms. "Lucky shot."
Brittany ignored them, smoothly ejecting the smoking casing and setting the rifle down with reverence. She popped the latches on the second case. The Glock 19 inside looked utilitarian, almost mundane compared to the long rifle. She slapped in a magazine with a practiced flick of her wrist.
"Just checking the sight shift on the .308. Glock's been cranky," she stated flatly to Tobias, who leaned against a weathered fence post, arms crossed, a silent observer. She raised the pistol towards a cluster of empty tins barely visible fifty yards away.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Five shots, faster than seemed reasonable, the reports sharp and flat. Five distinct pings answered almost instantly from the distant tins. Dust puffed where the bullets struck the dirt behind them. Every tin was gone.
Scotty gaped. "Impossible! The recoil compensation... the sight alignment time..."
Spock consulted his tricorder, a rare flicker of something akin to disbelief crossing his features. "Readings confirm simultaneous impacts. Statistically improbable to the point of negligibility."
Kirk stepped forward, the wheat whispering around his boots. "Alright. Enough games. How?" He met Tobias's steady gaze, the frustration boiling over. "Radiation immunity, impossible shots... who are you people? What is this place?"
Tobias didn't even glance Kirk’s way, his weathered face impassive as he pushed off the splintered fence post. He walked right past the fuming captain, boots crunching on the dry stalks littering their makeshift range. Stopping beside Brittany, he watched her slide the Glock back into its case.
"One hell of a shot, Marine," Tobias stated, his voice a low rumble laced with genuine respect. He clapped her lightly on the shoulder, a gesture of simple acknowledgment between soldiers. "Cleaner than boot camp finals."
The quiet words landed like grenades. The Starfleet crew froze, shock etching their faces. "Marine?" McCoy blurted, his medical scanner slipping slightly in his grip. "You? But... you served soup!"
Spock's eyebrow climbed towards his hairline, his earlier 'fascinating' seeming woefully inadequate now. Kirk’s demanding posture faltered, replaced by wide-eyed confusion. "Marine Corps?" Scotty managed, looking from the petite woman to the impossibly distant, bullet-riddled targets.
Brittany just snapped the case latches shut, the sharp clicks unnaturally loud in the sudden silence. "Semper Fi," she murmured, almost to herself, wiping a smudge of gunpowder residue from the case lid with her thumb. She offered no further explanation, her expression unreadable.
She offered no further explanation, her expression unreadable. The only sounds were the rustle of wheat and the distant groan of the old mansion's weathervane. Kirk finally broke the strained quiet, his voice tight with disbelief. "The best? You expect us to buy that you were the top Marine sniper?"
Brittany just shrugged, her gaze drifting past him to the skeletal frame of the Enterprise piercing the golden field. "Got the paper somewhere. Classified, mostly." She sniffed the faint tang of gunpowder still hanging in the air. "Point is, I know trajectories. Like how your ship shouldn't be here, radiating like Chernobyl on wheels."
Spock stepped forward, his analytical mind seizing the inconsistency. "A sniper of such purported caliber requires extensive, singular focus. It seems incongruent with another demanding profession prior to military service." He tilted his head. "What occupation preceded your enlistment?"
A ghost of a smile touched Brittany’s lips, sharp and fleeting. "Good question, Pointy. Kept me sharp." She hefted the Glock case, its weight familiar. "
McCoy scoffed. "What, you sold insurance? Calculated premiums?" Tobias shifted his stance almost imperceptibly, a silent warning against mockery.
Tobias shifted his stance almost imperceptibly, a silent warning against mockery. It hung heavy in the air, thick as the cordite scent clinging to their clothes.
"Insurance?" Brittany finally turned, her voice dangerously low, the ghost of a smile gone. She locked eyes with McCoy, her gaze flat and cold like tempered steel. "Try NCIS. Special Agent."
Kirk blinked. "Naval Criminal Investigative Service?" Recognition warred with disbelief. "But you said Marine..."
"Recruited young," Brittany continued, her words sharp and clipped, slicing through the humid air. "Straight out of high school, by Leroy Jethro Gibbs. My godfather." A flicker of something ancient and bitter crossed her face. "Played the father figure. Used it. Then, when things got hot, the Agency cut me loose. Gibbs signed the order."
She paused, the only sound the wind combing through the endless wheat. "Threw me straight to the wolves. A mob deal gone spectacularly wrong, and I was the designated sacrifice. Nineteen years old." Her knuckles whitened on the Glock case handle. "Left me dangling. Fornell," she nodded towards Tobias, whose jaw was clenched tight, eyes fixed on the distant, decaying mansion, "he was FBI. Hates Gibbs. Hates NCIS. Knows exactly what they did."
Another beat of silence stretched, taut and uncomfortable. Spock watched her with intense focus, his tricorder momentarily forgotten.
"I got out. Started over." Her shrug was minimal, dismissive. "Went to med school. Surgery. Did some design work. Forrester Creations." She met Kirk’s stunned gaze squarely. "Turns out I'm good at building things too. Businesses. Money. Let's just say I don't worry about the price of soup."
She let the implications hang – surgeon, billionaire fashion mogul, ex-Marine, burned Fed. The sheer, impossible scale of it slammed into the Starfleet officers. Scotty’s mouth worked soundlessly, a wrench slipping from his suddenly nerveless fingers to thud softly in the dirt. McCoy looked like he needed his own medical scanner. Spock’s eyebrow had reached a record altitude. Kirk just stared, utterly still.
The golden field seemed to hold its breath. The only movement was the wheat swaying and the grim silhouette of the Victorian mansion against the darkening sky. They simply stared at her, silenced.
Kirk’s jaw worked soundlessly, the confident captain momentarily adrift. McCoy’s medic brain short-circuited, flipping through incompatible diagnoses: delusion, trauma, sheer bullshit. "Surgeon? Fashion? NCIS?" he rasped, the words tasting like rust. "That’s... medically improbable. Brain can't compartmentalize that many specialties."
Spock’s tricorder emitted a confused chirp, mirroring his own uncharacteristic mental stutter. "The statistical likelihood of achieving peak proficiency in such divergent high-stress fields within a single human lifespan approaches zero," he stated, yet the evidence – the impossible shots, the deadpan delivery – defied logic. "Your assertion necessitates extraordinary verification."
Scotty, ever practical, found his voice first. "Lass, Forrester Creations? That billion-dollar beast?" He gestured vaguely towards the mansion. "You built... this?" The sheer scale of her claimed empire dwarfed the crashed starship beside them. "The engineering alone..."
Brittany didn’t confirm or deny Scotty’s question. She just watched them, a faint weariness settling over her sharp features like dust. The fading light caught the glint of something hard and untouchable deep in her eyes. Tobias remained a silent monolith at her side, his own gaze fixed on the officers with grim finality.
Kirk finally found his footing, the leader reasserting itself. "This changes nothing," he declared, though his voice lacked its usual conviction. "Our ship is crippled, leaking radiation like a sieve. We need answers, real answers, about where we are, what happened. Your... résumé... doesn't explain the physics-defying crash landing."
Brittany sniffed dismissively, the lingering scent of cordite sharp in her nostrils. "Physics here play by different rules, Captain. Your fancy scanners won't map them." Her knuckles tightened again on the gun case. "Maybe Tobias was right. Some graves shouldn't be dug up. Especially not tonight."
A silent understanding passed between her and Tobias, swift and complete, a lifetime of shared burdens compressed into a single glance. It wasn't fear, but a profound, bone-deep exhaustion. Without another word, Brittany turned on her heel, boots crunching decisively on the dry earth. Tobias fell into step beside her, a protective shadow, their backs to the stunned Starfleet officers as they walked, side by side, back towards the looming, silent mansion.